#44: The one thing you need to do during the holidays to improve your classroom management in 2024.
Dec 19, 2023
Claire English
I spent the first 5 years of my career feeling like I needed to be ‘all over’ every single facet of the lesson to contain and reduce challenging behaviours. This meant working through almost every weekend and break that I had.
Yes, it helped my classroom management! I was able to create lessons that were well-resourced, pitched right, scaffolded brilliantly so students could access them, relevant… all of the things that support us in mitigating some of the challenging behaviours that we may see.
What I didn’t release at the time was I was taking two steps forward and three steps back. I wasn’t resting, I wasn’t filling my cup, I wasn’t investing in myself, and I was BURNT OUT. Worse yet, I was on the brink of full-blown compassion fatigue after spending years absorbing the traumas of the young people I worked with.
This meant I was missing the biggest piece of the classroom management puzzle.
Ensuring I was okay, that I was regulated, that I had the capacity to co-regulate, stay calm, and influence the energy in the room. As cliched as it sounds, I wasn’t putting my own oxygen mask on before fitting it onto those around me.
So as we head into the holidays, this episode is a big reminder that resting is the most important thing that you can do, because the efficacy of your teacher self, is reliant on the health and wellbeing of your real life self. If this sounds like something you need a little bit of a reminder around, or you struggle to set boundaries, then this is the episode for you.
This is the last episode of The Unteachables Podcast for 2023 - I will be back Tuesday 8th January! I can’t wait to continue to support you in 2024.
I spent the first 5 years of my career feeling like I needed to be ‘all over’ every single facet of the lesson to contain and reduce challenging behaviours. This meant working through almost every weekend and break that I had.
Yes, it helped my classroom management! I was able to create lessons that were well-resourced, pitched right, scaffolded brilliantly so students could access them, relevant… all of the things that support us in mitigating some of the challenging behaviours that we may see.
What I didn’t release at the time was I was taking two steps forward and three steps back. I wasn’t resting, I wasn’t filling my cup, I wasn’t investing in myself, and I was BURNT OUT. Worse yet, I was on the brink of full-blown compassion fatigue after spending years absorbing the traumas of the young people I worked with.
This meant I was missing the biggest piece of the classroom management puzzle.
Ensuring I was okay, that I was regulated, that I had the capacity to co-regulate, stay calm, and influence the energy in the room. As cliched as it sounds, I wasn’t putting my own oxygen mask on before fitting it onto those around me.
So as we head into the holidays, this episode is a big reminder that resting is the most important thing that you can do, because the efficacy of your teacher self, is reliant on the health and wellbeing of your real life self. If this sounds like something you need a little bit of a reminder around, or you struggle to set boundaries, then this is the episode for you.
This is the last episode of The Unteachables Podcast for 2023 - I will be back Tuesday 8th January! I can’t wait to continue to support you in 2024.
Welcome to the Unteachables podcast. I'm your host, claire, and I am absolutely no stranger to the challenges and let's face it, sometimes carnage of being a teacher. And if you found yourself listening with me, I'd say that you might know a bit about that as well, because being a teacher is friggin hard, and this podcast is dedicated to making you feel a hell of a lot less alone, whilst giving you the knowledge, support and strategies that you need to not just survive the chaos of being a teacher, but to really thrive. Think about it as getting a weekly dose of relatable, actionable and, most importantly, enjoyable professional learning straight into your ears. So hit the subscribe button, download me if you're commute and let's get into it. Hello, hello, welcome to the week of the Unteachables podcast. If you haven't listened before, I'm Claire, and this podcast is just helping you out with something that you don't get enough help with, which is classroom management, and you've come in at a really good time, because this is the last episode of 2023. Oh my gosh, I can't believe we're at the end of this year, and I'm sure that probably 95% of the conversations that are happening in schools right now, as you're walking through the halls, are just people saying to each other how was the end of the year? And we've got three days left, or however long you've got left.
Speaker 1:
If you're in the Southern Hemisphere, though, I know that my Australian friends are finished for the year. So well done, you've made it to the end and you've got summer holidays, and I honestly miss having Christmas in the heat and the sunshine and summer. And my partner I was talking about this yesterday because this is the last Christmas that we're having here in London before we move home and we were talking about how the vibe is totally different. He's going to really miss it here in Europe and having winter, and this is what he associates with Christmas, whereas I can't wait to get back for a Christmas, I can't. My brother bought like a slip and slide that the kids can use next Christmas and you know, just having that just a totally different vibe, isn't it Anyway? So the holidays are upon us, whether you've started them or you're nearly there and, by the way, if you're listening to this in the future, if you're listening to this in the middle of a term next year, just know that this is just as relevant. This stuff is crucial for us to be able to talk about this stuff and to know this stuff.
Speaker 1:
I really wanted to give you a little bit of a reminder, as the holidays are approaching, and if you're listening to my podcast right now, I can pretty much guarantee it's because, just like most teachers, you're dealing with challenging behaviors, and if you're dealing with challenging behaviors at this time of the year, you're probably exhausted. So I just really wanted to talk today about compassion, fatigue, burnout and all of the things that are really common in teaching that we don't get taught about before we enter the profession. And it's something that hadn't really clicked with me, to be honest with you, until I was talking to my school psychotherapist after a really challenging week one day and I thought I was just really burnt out. I felt numb, I was getting frustrated, I was short tempered, I'd walk in the door and I'm a bit of an introvert anyway. So when I do get home from school, I tend to walk through the door and I'm used to anywhere. I can't anymore because I'm a mother, but I used to walk in the door and I used to have to say to my partner, like he knew, I'm going to go into the bedroom for an undetermined amount of time, as long as I need to get over the fact that, you know, I just need, I just need time, however long I need for that day. It could be half an hour, it could be an hour, whatever I need it. Now I don't get that, which is fine, because I fill my cups in other ways. But what I didn't know at this particular time was that it wasn't just regular. I need to just, you know, have a bit of containment and fill my cup and, you know, have a bit of time to myself. I was fully burnt out. I felt numb. I was just rewatching the same shows, I was really disconnected and I wasn't just burnt out.
Speaker 1:
I sat down and I spoke to my school psychotherapist and he's like no, you have, you is clear, you have compassion fatigue at the moment, and the times where I was getting this really badly was after a week of work. You're dealing with really challenging behaviors, are holding space for other, for young people. You're holding space for other people in general and they come with their big feelings and they, you know, disclose things to you or they're using the relationship to be able to feel safe, or whatever it might be with the young people that you're working with. But we are on the front line with that stuff. If students have a disorganized attachment that you know manifests in really challenging behaviors, and again as teachers in the classroom in front of them, we're holding space for that, we are absorbing that. That energy is really thick around those young people and we're doing the very best we can to work with them and work with that and overcome that with them and manage that challenging behavior and resolve that challenging behavior.
Speaker 1:
And there is just so much that we have to do in our jobs when it comes to working with young people with challenging behaviors. So here I was thinking I was just burnt out, I was just tired and I was overworked. And, by the way, the symptoms of burnout and compassion fatigue can be really similar. But burnout, if we think about burnout, usually stems from having too much work or too many responsibilities, whereas compassion fatigue it comes from us having to support other people where might be exposed to the trauma of other people. So psychotherapists might get compassion fatigue, nurses might get compassion fatigue. You know, social workers, doctors, anybody who works with human beings in a capacity where they're exposed to some kind of trauma it's and they are kind of experiencing that vicarious trauma.
Speaker 1:
Why this is so important for me to be talking about is if you're dealing with these challenging behaviors, it is likely that you could experience burnout from just the teaching profession in general, which is very common because of the like, the sheer workload that we have. But then you pair that with compassion, fatigue, with the behaviors that we're being presented with, with the students who are talking to us about the things they've experienced in their life, all of those extra elements. It's kind of like a perfect storm where we're dealing with burnout, we're also dealing with people on that level, and when it comes to managing challenging behaviors, we can only do. That sounds like a double-edged sword, because we can only manage challenging behaviors if we are okay ourselves, because so much of our classroom management is reliant upon our own regulation and our own emotional capacity to hold space for these young people, to be able to regulate, to be able to go in calm, to be able to set the energy of the room, the tone of the room. We can't do that if we are not okay ourselves, and that's why I wanted to talk about it today, because all of the things that we need to do in our jobs we can't do unless we're okay, and so this is a huge reminder that rest is productive, especially in teaching, especially in a job that requires so much of you. We need to remind ourselves this every single time we have a break, every single weekend. It's so easy for us to go nut. There's too much to do, there's such a high expectation of what I need to do.
Speaker 1:
I'm telling you now, when I hit my very lowest in teaching I'm talking like quitting, kind of lowest I was so worried about having every single thing in my lesson sorted, every single lesson, all the resources, perfect, everything on point, all of the little things that I needed to get done, like I wouldn't go into a lesson without every single resource being like the highest quality it could possibly be. And I think I was so worried because that's the one thing in the lesson that you can really control, like the delivery, like what you actually do, what you put out there. And even at that time I understood that the link between teaching and learning and the lesson and all the things that we do, the link between that and challenging behaviors and the things that we see manifesting there's an inextricable link there as well. So I was doing everything I possibly could to manage the challenging behaviors in my class and I was going fine at it back then. You know, at the time it wasn't bad at all.
Speaker 1:
But what was happening was I was putting so much work into the back end of my lessons and preparation and planning and all the rest of it that I wasn't actually taking care of myself and I wasn't being able to rest. And I was spending so much time on that stuff that by the time I went into the week I had nothing left in the tank and then I was pouring for an empty cup and I was getting again all of those things, all of those things that we see when we're burnt out or have compassion fatigue. I was getting frustrated, I felt hopeless, I had no energy, I was messed up. Really, I just didn't have anything left when I went into that classroom. So, no matter how amazing my lessons were, no matter how on point things were, if I was irritable, if I didn't have the capacity, if I was disconnected, I wasn't going to be able to classroom manage in the way that was effective. So I definitely saw that in the lessons that I had and little by little, things decided to kind of slip because I wasn't okay myself.
Speaker 1:
So it's really important for us to be thinking what do we really need to do right now? Because everything, if we put everything on a to-do list, there are so many things that look like they're really, really important and like that lesson, like all the lessons that I was planning, to me that was so crucial because that's the thing that I could control in the lesson to support me with the classroom management. But then what actually matters, what actually mattered at the time, was me being okay. So it's really crucial these holidays, go and celebrate with your family. Delete the email app if you haven't already.
Speaker 1:
There are urgent things that need to get done, but make sure they're actually urgent. Be really reflective on what those urgent things are. Most things can wait. You could honestly work and work and work all holidays and still not feel prepared, still not feel over it. You could work and work and maybe get on top of things, but then be so burnt out by the time school starts that your classroom management isn't going to be as effective as it could be anyway, or you're not going to be able to give what you could possibly give if you were okay going into the term, and I think that the system and the schools and everything have a lot of things to be accountable for when it comes to staff well-being.
Speaker 1:
Of course they do, but there comes a point as well where we need to put the boundaries in place for ourselves and be really reflective on what we need to do and say no like why I need to be able to take care of myself first and foremost, and and myself outside of school matters so much, and this has never been more important to me than now being a mom of a young baby. I say young baby, but she's nearly a toddler. She feels like a young baby when she's still not sleeping through the night. It's never felt more important to me now and I've never understood this more than this year having a baby and having to go back to a senior leadership role full-time and do all the things. So I guess that's why I wanted to make sure I bought this to Lights Day on the podcast before we go into the holiday season.
Speaker 1:
Whatever you're doing to celebrate, I just really want you to know that it's okay to take a break, it's okay to fill our cups. Not only is it okay, but it's bloody crucial, because the efficacy of our classroom management and of us as teachers, is so reliant on the health and the wellness of our real life self, of our self outside of the classroom, of outside of our schools. So, as you head into the holidays, I really want you to Think to yourself, instead of all the things that you have to do before you go back to school in a physical sense, like I've got this marking to do, or I've got you know this deadline when I get back, or I really want to redesign this program and all the things that you could possibly be thinking going into the holidays. So I remember that feeling in my gut, especially as a mainstream teacher, having like 200 English papers to mark and like a box of paper that you just had to get through and the anxiety that you felt, you know, at the end of the holidays when you hadn't done that. So instead of thinking about all of those things, I used to smash it out in two days at the start. So of course, there are things that you do need to do and that will lighten the lead when you go back. I'm not saying that at all because often when I talk about like well-being and the break and not doing work and all that kind of stuff and holding boundaries. The response is yes, but I need to do X, y and Z. I'm just saying that you need to be choosy about the things that really do matter, and I'm telling you that nothing matters more than you being able to go into work in the new year, having the capacity to class you manage in the best way that you can, and that is about taking care of yourself and your health.
Speaker 1:
Okay, on that same wavelength, I'm going to be taking two weeks off the Unteachable's podcast until the new year so the ninth of Jan because, to be very honest with you, my own nervous system is in absolute tethers after 2023. And if you listened to last week's 2023 wrapped up, you'll totally understand why I am dangling by my last little thread. And I've got so many exciting things happening in this two weeks and I want to be super present. For you know, I've got my last Christmas in London, like an Ava's first Christmas. We've got new years. Obviously we're going to be going to my partner's brother's place, and so we're going away out of London for a week, and then I've got Ava's first birthday on the 4th of January. So there's two weeks of me just really wanting to be present with the family and I know that, in the same vein of what I've just spoken to you about, I know that if I take these two weeks to really fill my cup and, to you know, just be with my family, I know that I'm going to be able to show up in amazing ways for you in 2024. So that is the best way that I can do a bit of modelling for you and just saying you know, for the next two weeks I'm going to be actually, I still am going to be doing Instagram and that kind of stuff, but I'm going to be pretty incognito, but I'm sending love to every single one of you.
Speaker 1:
Thank you so much for all of your support in 2023. Thank you for listening to this podcast. It means a lot to me every single person who downloads and listens and being able to support you and your practice. Actually, I had someone that messaged me last week saying that in their school newsletter, their headteacher had put in a link to my episode about teachers returning from maternity leave, and the message that that headteacher sent was make sure that you're, you know, keeping an eye on your colleagues and supporting your colleagues who are returning from maternity leave or who are parents and the fact that that's something that's happening and there's a ripple effect there and you know this podcast is reaching schools and making an impact in some way. It just means everything and that is definitely a highlight of 2023 for me. So I wouldn't have known that unless somebody messaged me telling me and it honestly filled me with so much joy to hear that.
Speaker 1:
So if you have gotten anything from the podcast this year I don't know, it's like a really one way conversation, but if you have gotten something from the podcast this year, if you've implemented something in your practice, if something, if it's shifted anything in your practice, if it's given you any insights, it would mean so much. If you were to leave a review, take a screenshot and send it to me. I don't see this. I don't see the reviews that are posted in other countries. So if you just screenshot that before you press post, because you can't go back to it, I have found out the hard way when I've tried to do it for somebody else Because I thought it was a really nice thing to be able to send to somebody as a podcast.
Speaker 1:
You kind of get a sense of how important these things are for people to hear. Anyway. So if you do send me a screenshot, I am going to do something for next year, which is put all of the names of the people who send me a screenshot of their reviews into a hat and I'm going to pull one out when I relaunch my course. That'll teach them in April for the next intake and for those who are new to this space and not aware of my course, it is my one stop shop comprehensive signature classroom management course where I go through how to reduce challenging behavior, how to respond to challenging behavior and then how to resolve challenging behavior.
Speaker 1:
So we go on a little bit of a journey and for one of you, lovely people who leave me a review, I'm going to enroll you for free, just as a massive thank you for leaving me a review and making this conversation a little bit more two-sided. Okay, lovely teachers, have a wonderful and very well deserved break. Remember, you cannot do the job that you need to do if you are not okay. And to be okay, you need to fill your cup. And to fill your cup you need to say notice some things and focus on the things that are really important and take care of your health and take care of your well-being and just have a bloody wonderful time over the break. Have a wonderful last few days of school, if that is you, and I will see you in 2024.